Post by Admin on May 7, 2021 21:20:59 GMT
Much analysis of Drivers License’s wild success concerned a rumoured relationship between Rodrigo and a male co-star (and the alleged third wheel), which you can read about in asinine detail elsewhere. There is no way the majority of listeners cared about this; the song’s appeal is its musical familiarity and the cinematic lyrics laying out Rodrigo’s eviscerated-but-still-beating heart. (Even her best friend, Bizaardvark co-star Madison Hu – who steered Rodrigo through the breakup in real time – said she only really understood her anguish when she heard it.) And for all the media obsession with gen-Z culture shifts, she is reassuringly traditional: the eternal lovelorn teenage songwriter. Rodrigo’s songwriting also subtly distills the passing of innocence. Her second single, the gleefully accusatory Deja Vu, ribbed her ex for repeating their rituals with his new girl (Billy Joel songs, Glee) but also acknowledged “everything is all reused”. Losing first love, she says, “feels sort of earth-shattering in a way that’s obviously heartbreaking but really beautiful, too”.
When Rodrigo meets someone new, she always asks if they have any ghost stories: Sour is its own collection of them, I suggest. “Oh, I’m literally obsessed with that!” she says effusively. (She is, enjoyably, “literally obsessed” with many things during our conversation, including Dua Lipa – whom she wants to meet at the Brits – Natalie Portman, Winona Ryder and the recording studio.) “I never thought about that but I’m going to use that now! Yeah, I feel like that period of my life is sort of over now, like dead,” she says with relish. “It’s fun to look back on those memories and know that they’re not real and happening right now, but you still experienced them.”
Was the obsession with the supposed relationship drama sexist? She sighs. “I try not to look at it or take that stuff super seriously.” But she has noticed “sexist criticism of songwriters like me being told that they only write songs about boys”. She watched it happen with Swift, her favourite songwriter, “which is just BS in my mind”. She has never understood the argument. “I’m a teenage girl, I write about stuff that I feel really intensely – and I feel heartbreak and longing really intensely – and I think that’s authentic and natural. I don’t really understand what people want me to write about; do you want me to write a song about income taxes? How am I going to write an emotional song about that?”
Sour feels “intrinsically young”, she says; the point was to honour those acute teenage feelings. “Something I’m really proud of is that this record talks about emotions that are hard to talk about or aren’t really socially acceptable especially for girls: anger, jealousy, spite, sadness, they’re frowned-upon as bitchy and moaning and complaining or whatever. But I think they’re such valid emotions.” The seven songs I hear are also rife with deep insecurity: Rodrigo brutally comparing herself with the new girlfriend, defeated by a boy’s impossible standards, scrolling social media and feeling sick with envy.
Obviously, beauty and success aren’t everything, but it shows how absurdly poisonous social media is that the pretty, accomplished Rodrigo feels that way. “I think there’s a lot of strength in saying: I don’t know anything and I feel so insecure and unwanted,” she says. “If I were a younger person looking up to my favourite songwriter, I’d be really moved by that so I hope I can provide that.” Rodrigo is Filipino American, which created another point of comparison. “It’s hard for anyone to grow up in this media where it feels like if you don’t have European features and blond hair and blue eyes, you’re not traditionally pretty. I felt that a lot – since I don’t look exactly like the girl next door in all these movies, I’m not attractive. That actually took me a while to shake off. It’s something I’m still shaking off now.”
She has been online much less post-Drivers License. “You can create your own reality sometimes with social media,” she says. “What you see just becomes your reality, and it’s totally not at all.” On the cacophonous Jealousy, Jealousy, she sings, “I think I think too much about kids who don’t know me”. To cope, now that she’s more open to criticism than ever, she remembers her mum’s words: “Those who matter don’t mind, and those who mind don’t matter.”
When Rodrigo meets someone new, she always asks if they have any ghost stories: Sour is its own collection of them, I suggest. “Oh, I’m literally obsessed with that!” she says effusively. (She is, enjoyably, “literally obsessed” with many things during our conversation, including Dua Lipa – whom she wants to meet at the Brits – Natalie Portman, Winona Ryder and the recording studio.) “I never thought about that but I’m going to use that now! Yeah, I feel like that period of my life is sort of over now, like dead,” she says with relish. “It’s fun to look back on those memories and know that they’re not real and happening right now, but you still experienced them.”
Was the obsession with the supposed relationship drama sexist? She sighs. “I try not to look at it or take that stuff super seriously.” But she has noticed “sexist criticism of songwriters like me being told that they only write songs about boys”. She watched it happen with Swift, her favourite songwriter, “which is just BS in my mind”. She has never understood the argument. “I’m a teenage girl, I write about stuff that I feel really intensely – and I feel heartbreak and longing really intensely – and I think that’s authentic and natural. I don’t really understand what people want me to write about; do you want me to write a song about income taxes? How am I going to write an emotional song about that?”
Sour feels “intrinsically young”, she says; the point was to honour those acute teenage feelings. “Something I’m really proud of is that this record talks about emotions that are hard to talk about or aren’t really socially acceptable especially for girls: anger, jealousy, spite, sadness, they’re frowned-upon as bitchy and moaning and complaining or whatever. But I think they’re such valid emotions.” The seven songs I hear are also rife with deep insecurity: Rodrigo brutally comparing herself with the new girlfriend, defeated by a boy’s impossible standards, scrolling social media and feeling sick with envy.
Obviously, beauty and success aren’t everything, but it shows how absurdly poisonous social media is that the pretty, accomplished Rodrigo feels that way. “I think there’s a lot of strength in saying: I don’t know anything and I feel so insecure and unwanted,” she says. “If I were a younger person looking up to my favourite songwriter, I’d be really moved by that so I hope I can provide that.” Rodrigo is Filipino American, which created another point of comparison. “It’s hard for anyone to grow up in this media where it feels like if you don’t have European features and blond hair and blue eyes, you’re not traditionally pretty. I felt that a lot – since I don’t look exactly like the girl next door in all these movies, I’m not attractive. That actually took me a while to shake off. It’s something I’m still shaking off now.”
She has been online much less post-Drivers License. “You can create your own reality sometimes with social media,” she says. “What you see just becomes your reality, and it’s totally not at all.” On the cacophonous Jealousy, Jealousy, she sings, “I think I think too much about kids who don’t know me”. To cope, now that she’s more open to criticism than ever, she remembers her mum’s words: “Those who matter don’t mind, and those who mind don’t matter.”